


'I Love Him, Ma'

by Evilpixie



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Superman (Comics)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Dark, Domestic Violence, Emotional Hurt, Family Drama, Guilt, Intervention, M/M, No Sex, Pain, Painplay, Psychological Drama, S&M, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 01:23:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilpixie/pseuds/Evilpixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark struggles to face his mother while wearing the repercussions of his abusive love affair with super criminal Lex Luthor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'I Love Him, Ma'

Martha dropped the plates into the sink and hurriedly twisted the tap. Hot water gushed with a rattle of hidden pipes to splash over gravy stained porcelain. The noise wasn’t enough to hide the hitch and scrape of her ragged breathing.

 

Not to him.

 

“Ma,” he sat at the table and stared down at the empty tablecloth in front of him. “I’m sorry.”

 

“No,” the woman shook her head, not looking at him. “Don’t.” Her words shook.

 

He hugged his sides and grimly obeyed. He knew there was nothing he could say that would make a difference. Not now. Not when the evidence of his crime was printed so boldly across his face.

 

She washed the dishes in silence, dropped them with shaking hands onto the rack, and dried her hands on the tea towel without ever turning around to look at him.

 

“So you want some ice cream?” She horsed. “I made it this morning just for… I don’t usually eat it and since Jonathan died I…”

 

“Yes, Ma,” Clark answered.

 

The woman moved to the fridge and dutifully retrieved the plastic container filled with the offered treat. Recovered a large cream coloured bowl from the overhead draw and delivered three generous scoops of chocolate ice cream into it. She took her time digging through the draw for the right spoon; the one with his name carved into it he got for his fifth birthday. He never used another while at the Kent farm.

 

When she finally turned around to land the dessert on the table before him her eyes were rimmed with red.

 

“Thanks, Ma,” he muttered miserably. Ate slowly.

 

“Why?”

 

He stopped.

 

“Why do you… he’s not…”

 

“I love him, Ma.”

 

Her brow crumbled. “Why, Clark?”

 

It was a question he’d asked himself since he first followed those pale green eyes, eyes the colour of kryptonite, into his double pronged fortress standing like a spear through the body of his city. Of his Metropolis.

 

“He’s a criminal,” his adoptive earth mother said hopelessly.

 

“I know.”

 

“He hates you.”

 

Clark felt his heart twist. He didn’t say anything.

 

Martha Kent slumped down on her chair at the other end of the table and buried her face in her hands. On her finger the worn weathered wedding given to her by her late husband shone a rustic gold. Her hair was grey and fell out of a low pony tail in wispy strands. Her skin was starting to soften and thin with age.

 

It had been just over thirty years since her and her husband had found the rocket ship buried in a cornfield on the edge of their property. Just over thirty years since a doomed planet answered her prayers and gave her the child her body never could. Just over thirty years since she became a mother. Now, he could see, she was wondering where in those thirty years did she go wrong.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I know you think you’ve failed…”

 

“I have,” she said, folding her hands on the table before her. “I have failed as a parent.”

 

“No, you haven’t.”

 

“We taught you about truth, justice, and the American way,” she rasped. “We taught you to be good to others. I… I should have taught you to be good to yourself. I… I thought you knew… I thought…”

 

“It’s not like that,” he said. His voice sounded feeble to his own ears; hollow and stale; a flimsy lie retold too many times to hold any credence.

 

She closed her eyes. “You can’t change him, Clark. For some men… for some men there is no change.”

 

He knew that. He had seen too many super criminals rise from rehabilitation to return, without remorse, to the life they led before. He had known too many heroes whose bodies were brutalised beyond repair who still fought to make it out into the fray. He had known too many men who would never change. Men of vengeance, men of honour, and men of nothing. Men who were black holes that would take and take but never give.

 

Men like Lex Luthor.

 

“Sometimes that’s a good thing,” she continued. “Sometimes it makes them good and right.” She looked at him. “And sometimes it’s not. Sometime men’s hearts are black, Clark. It doesn’t matter how much light and love you pour into them; they will never change.”

 

“I know.”

 

He finished his ice cream, washed up, and excused himself. Marched up the stairs to lock himself in his old bedroom covered in planet posters, books, and his old stone collection. He sat on the red and blue bedding and looked into the mirror propped against the far wall.

 

Looked at the familiar square line of his jaw, the unearthly blue of his eyes, and the purple red bruise staining the skin of his cheek.

 

Clark reached up to touch it and flinched.

 

Pain.

 

Even after all this time the feeling was alien to him. The strange, tender, sensation of his damaged body. His indestructible body. Damaged by the man who most hated him. The man who would use and discard him. The man he loved.

 

He gritted his teeth, pressed on the bruise, and tried to imagine his fingers were Lex’s. Tried to imagine the anger, the cold stare, and the almost hidden fascination in the man’s eyes as he hurt him. Tried to imagine the low, almost savage, sound of the man’s voice as he asked him how it felt. As he demanded detailed descriptions of Clark’s agony even as he inflicted it.

 

Alien.

 

He would call him alien even though Clark was sure he knew his identity. He would call him alien and force him to his knees, force him to bow and beg, and forced him to take the pain even after it was too much. Even after the extended exposure to the kryptonite meant the bruises and marks Lex left on his skin stayed with him for hours, sometimes days.

 

When he still felt weak, sick, and hurt the morning after as he desperately waited for the sun to rise and restore to him some of his strength.

 

He waited for the sun now. Too exhausted to fly up and find her, too tired to wait for the face of the moon to reflect enough on to him to repair his face, and too sore to pretend he wasn’t desperate.

 

Desperate to refill his powers so he could hear the world again and not just the angry undefined buzz of distant voices in his ears. Desperate to remove the mark on his face and escape the self judgement of his mother. Desperate to be strong again… so he could be destroyed again.

 

Because the stronger he got the weaker the world became until he could punch through the crust of the planet and not feel anything. To be distant and disconnected. To be powerful, perfect, and painless.

 

He hated it. Hated being able to feel every atom but also not feel anything at all. To be so powerful he became numb. To be so strong the whole world became cardboard, then paper, and then nothing at all. So strong he could never really hug anyone he cared about for risk of shattering their bones in a slight miscalculation of his current power levels.

 

But with Lex he could scream without blowing away the building, he could yank and claw at his bonds in useless panicked struggle, and he could feel. Feel the danger of everything from the hard edge of a table, the burn of carpet rubbed against him, and ache of being taken by the man who would see him destroyed.

 

A game of destroyer and protector suspended in the wake of a different game; a game of inflicted pain and stolen pleasure.

 

Sometimes he would lock him in a room with red sunlight generators. He preferred that. He could stay awake longer, remember more, and experience more. Other times it was kryptonite. Dizzying, sickening, agonizing. The weapon that would reduce him to less than human.

 

Lex liked that.

 

Liked him down and curled on the floor. Liked pressing his skin and watching him bruise. Liked exposing him longer than Clark promised possible. Exposing him till his weight began to drop off his body, skin bruise on contact with anything, and bones ache from the inside out.

 

Exposing him till Clark was sure he’d finally decided defeating him took too much effort and he would simply let him drain and die chained to his bed. No grand last public battle with Superman. No historical victory against the alien invader. Just a shallow grave somewhere beyond city limits.

 

Maybe under a cornfield like the one he crashed into thirty years before.

 

He slept in the bed, shifting uncomfortably on his bruised and battered body, and showered when he woke. The air was cold and dead. Void of the sunlight he was starving for. He went outside, sat on the porch, and waited for dawn. Watched the sun creep over the horizon and felt the bloated bruises begin to melt off his body. It was a full hour before he felt strong enough to speed out onto the property and promptly do all his old chores.

 

When it was time to leave he dressed in his suit of blue and red and bundled the less glamorous clothes he’d arrived in under his arm.

 

Martha met him outside and wordlessly pulled him into a fierce hug. He carefully returned the embrace and kissed her lined forehead.

 

“I’ll be back soon,” he promised.

 

“Stay,” she whispered against his ear. “You don’t have to go back to Metropolis. You can stay here.”

 

He frowned. “I like Metropolis.”

 

“I… I know that, baby bear. I do. But…”

 

“Ma,” he drew back and looked her in the eye. “I’ll be alright.”

 

She didn’t look convinced.

 

“I will,” he smiled. “I’m doing well at work and…”

 

“What can I say that’ll make you leave him?”

 

His stomach twisted. “We’re not… together.”

 

“What can I say that’ll make you stop going to him, then.” She clutched his arm and he felt the last fleeting pang of pain from his fading bruises. “You’re so weak…” she muttered, feeling the give in his flesh.

 

“I’ll be back to normal by midday,” he said with forced lightness.

 

“Clark… I… I love you… please…”

 

“Don’t cry, Ma.”

 

“I… oh baby….”

 

He wished then he’d never told her about Lex. Wished he’d used battle as an excuse for his reappearing wounds and kept the criminal one sided love affair a secret. But he’d been naive when Lex first took him and let him fly free afterwards. He’d believed the man had secretly cared. Believed he could grow to love him. That it was the start of a relationship not… whatever it was they had.

 

“Bye, Ma.”

 

Later that day Lex attacked S.T.A.R labs and held half the employees hostage. Remotely, of course. Everyone knew the origin of the attack but he doubted there would be any legal trail that would follow back to the man. Lex was a spider in the middle of an invisible web and this attack; the theft of laboratory data and equipment; as well as the string of bribes, blackmail, and murder that made is possible would never land on his already extensive criminal record.

 

Despite himself and everything Superman stood for, Clark was grateful. And he hated himself for it.

 

As usual Lex confessed to him. Stood in his penthouse office, stared out over the city, and spoke so quietly not even the assistant standing by his desk could hear him. But Clark could. Floating above the red light of the fading sun he listened as Lex told him everything. From the machines he’d built to the people he’d killed. All of it under his nose. All of it proving the all powerful Superman wasn’t as great as Lex Luthor, the true man of steel.

 

As usual Clark listened.

 

Months slipped by, dauntless, and made easier by the murky fickle cloud of the aging winter.

 

He met with the Justice League, smiled for the press, and saved the world. He went home for dinner twice a week, helped run the struggling Kent farm, and wrote articles that won an accepting grunt from Perry and an envious pout from Lois. He saved the world.

 

Carefully.

 

Carefully as to not break it.

 

Break it like the sink he bumped against that morning, the handle he’d pulled off the door, or the window he smashed with a small private laugh.

 

The sun was setting when he came to hover outside Lex’s window. His eyes blazed an involuntary red, breath deliberately held, and every movement fast enough to be a blur to human eyes. It used to be a year of sun exposure before he’d be this powerful.

 

Not anymore.

 

Lex waited hours before showing any sign he was aware of his presence. He opened the window, looked at him with disgust, and jerked his head at the carpet before his desk. Obediently Clark floated in to hover over the indicated area.

 

“Look at you, alien,” Lex said softly, dangerously, as he walked over to his desk. “How can anyone ever think you’re human?” His eyes narrowed. “Get that gaudy thing off.”

 

Clark obeyed. Stripped and placed his iconic costume to the side so fast the motion would be completely lost to Lex’s eyes. He hovered naked, impassive, and numb to the world.

 

Lex took a moment to regard him before he opened the top draw of his desk. The one lined with lead. Instantly Clark felt it. He flinched and dropped to the ground with a stagger.

 

“How can anyone be so blind as to think _you’re_ a super _man_?” Voice rich, dark, and cruelly satisfied.

 

The man removed a dark green glowing stone from the desk and tested its weight in his hands. He began to approach.

 

Clark shivered as he came around the desk, felt his whole body ache as he walked across the room, and finally fell to his knees with a pained groan as he came to stand before him.

 

He was breathing. Short, horse, gasps of breath that scraped out of him and plunged in like knives to his lungs. It hurt. It hurt with a pain that throbbed behind his eyes, sucked the energy from his limbs, and trickled cold and cruel into his bones. Left him hollow, helpless, and hurt.

 

There were other ways.

 

He knew there were other ways to depower himself that didn’t involve submitting to the malevolent and monstrous man before him. He knew it would be better and safer to expose himself, or ask one of the league members to expose him, to the burning cold stone held above him. He knew he didn’t have to come here. He didn't need Lex.

 

But he loved him.

 

He loved Lex.

 

He loved the pain, the surrender, and the man.

 

The man. Clever. Cruel. Criminal.

 

Powerful… powerful in a way that Clark could never be no matter how yellow the sun.

 

Lex Luthor.

 

His world was rapidly shrinking. His awareness of the city melting away till all he could hear was his own ragged, pained breathing.

 

Until all he could see was Lex standing above him and looking down with the now familiar mix of hate and fascination as the red in Clark’s eyes faded to blue and the blue started to dull towards a bleached grey.

 

He blinked and swayed.

 

Never fell.

 

Lex allowed himself that pleasure.

 

The blow snapped his head to the side and knocked him curled on his side on the carpet. Lex kicked him onto his back and knelt over him. Hissed into his ear.

 

“I’ll never call you Superman.”

 

Pressed the kryptonite into his hand.

 

Clark screamed at the cold burn and yanked his hand away. Was struck again. Across the face. The stone was in Lex’s fist.

 

He felt the bruise bloom across his cheek.

 

Sorry Ma.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I never ever thought I would write a story for Clark and Lex for the primary reason I am more a comic book fan and thus not really a subscriber to the Smallville universe where that couple really took flight. The comic versions of these two don't really... mesh as easily. However, I think I may have... meshed... them here.
> 
> I'm not sure, however, and I would love any comments, kudos, and/or feedback you can give. I'm still pretty new to this whole gig and thus communication from readers still really helps and makes me skip in circles.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading. I hope you liked it.
> 
> P.S I am a tad embarrassed to admit this was inspired by a male version of Britney Spear's 'Criminal' [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK_LF8-2X3k). I wasn't going to admit it but both the inspiration and the influence are reasonably strong.


End file.
